I have been looking like mad for a new laptop but I am having some difficulty!

Firstly there is the Mac or PC issue.

Obviously Mac have a great reputation with the graphics work. The new Macbook Pros are VERY pricey and are only coming with a glossy screen which is VERY reflective with any light at all.

With PC there are so many models and so many different specs to choose from it makes it hard in itself.

CS4 would be my main most important programme so if anyone could shed some light for me on what the best approach would be to take with a budget of around £800 - £1200... I have used PC all my life with chunks of work here and there done on Mac.

Apple designs all the hardware themself, whereas all manufacturers can design PC-hardware. That makes it more safely running hardware-wise. And as far as i know, that's why their better for Graphic work than PCs.

But with PCs, you get more specs for the same money.
An example: (This is fictive)
A 2 ghz dual core, 2gb ram, 160gb HDD, and a GeForce 9600 256 mb.

The mac would cost in between 1.5-2 times as much as the PC. Ofcourse this is not true at all times, but most. Actually sometimes it's more than twice the price o.O

As previously stated, Macs are closed systems. Apple does this primarily to make money. If you want to buy anything for your Mac, it pretty much has to be Apple, or Apple approved. That's why Macs are so expensive, and why all the accessories for them are so expensive.

Now, the good thing that comes about from this is that they are pretty reliable because Apple has absolute power over what you can and can't use.

PCs are much more flexible so to speak as far as hardware is concerned. Because it's an open system, you run the risk of poorly supported hardware etc., although it's an exaggerated risk. If you purchase $10 accessories for your computer made by some generic company in China, then yes it will likely suffer from poor driver support and can crap out on you. However, all the competition in the PC market results in comparatively cheaper pricing for...well, everything. The risk of crappy hardware is greatly diminished as long as you stay with reputable companies such as HP, Dell, etc.

Basically, you get a whole lot more bang for your buck if you go the PC route. The thing about CS4 right now, is that you CANNOT run 64-bit on Mac OS X. This means that you're limited to under 4GB of RAM, and cannot work with as large of images (I forget the exact size). This likely wouldn't be a huge issue though, since I doubt your file sizes will be large enough to cause issues. The reason there is no 64-bit is because Apple failed to release 64-bit design tools in time. (Not sure if it's even out still.)

I've given CS4 a test run on my PC, and so far it seems to run pretty snappy
Quick specs = Core2 E6600, 2GB RAM (2GB more on the way, RMAed), Geforce 8800 GTS 640MB Vista64

Another thing to be aware of is that Macs are running PC hardware. After all, they switched over to Intel some time ago. So if you want, you can view it as simply a rather high-end PC.

Recommendations for whatever laptop you get:
Doing lot's of image processing?
Get at least 4GB of RAM.
Get a 64-bit operating system (to support the 4GB+)
Make sure it has a good graphics card that offers good 3d acceleration (CS4 is OpenGL accelerated and will benefit)

CS4 has been benchmarked and runs sightly faster on the mac but the begins to slow down(on the mac) once the files get larger as there is no 64-bit support for the mac. It is unlikely that you will experience this doing everyday photo editing as you will need to be handling files larger than 1GB to really feel the hit.

IMO, the price difference between the Mac and the PC is a over exaggerated. The Mac may cost more but there isn't anything quite like it from the competition. It may not show up on paper or be worth it at all, but it's there. The iMac is a great example, look at the equivalent Dell XPS One.

Coming from a PC, the Mac just runs Adobe apps much faster than my PC ever did with a much less stability issues but with the money saved by getting a PC, you could get a much higher spec machine than you would with the Apple product.

I got a Mac because a I liked Leopard and a lot of other things that the Mac came with but I would not buy it solely to run CS4. It's not worth it just for that especially if you already use Windows.

Cool thread and great posts!
I use windows because that's the software I have and I can really get a lot done fast. I love OS X though. I use it at work and it is pleasure to look at and use. It is very polished. I would love to buy the new MacBook Pro (drool), but then I would have to buy Photoshop and Lightroom again, ouch!
Sometimes I think it is worth it especially with CS4 out, but that's a lot of money I could put into camera gear. Tough choice you have Jatz!

The hardware is irrelevant. Nobody buys a Mac because they think the Intel processors in them are better because they are not and nobody is gullible enough to believe that. People buy Macs because of the software. Whether it is superior or not is subjective but the Macs have the same hardware as PCs argument doesn't mean anything.

Jatz,

If the MacBook Pro is your most likely choice if you go down the Mac route, then I would avoid it as the glossy screen is completely inaccurate for graphics work unless you have an external monitor. For graphics work, I would avoid the macs on that issue alone. Matte screens on laptops aren't perfect but they are far better and if you get an LED backlit one (just not the glossy kinda) the colour gamut is wider and the contrast better as well.

Technically yes. As PC stands for Personal Computer, which an apple computer is.

0eyvind

/Rant

Yes, but I didn't mean that in just a literal sense. In the past, the only thing that differentiated a Mac from a PC so to speak, was the microarchitecture it was using. Mac was powerpc, from IBM, and PCs were x86 based from Intel. They now both run just about identical hardware. Theoretically, you ought to be able to run OS X on a pc. And in fact you can, although it's technically not legal. Why? Because if you purchase Mac OS, you are only allowed to install it on an Apple system. I find that kind of funny. That Blu-ray you just bought? You can only watch it on a Sony TV, and a Sony entertainment system.

The main reason for this is of course, to make money. Apple makes their money off of their hardware.

Yes, a MacBook Pro is very expensive. But if you buy an iMac (a desktop), you will spend less and you'll also get a bigger screen.

As a long time user of the Windows system (heck, I've used Windows 3.11), what I can say is this: having recently needed a better machine, and fearing Windows Vista, I chose to go with the Mac system instead and, right from the start, it was a trouble-free experience - a Mac is reliable and very simple to use.

A desktop is always a better buy than a laptop (as far as power of the system for the price you pay).

Get the laptop if you need the portability. I've got to say, the majority of college students I see with laptops don't need them. Most play games in class instead of taking notes. It's actually pretty amusing, but distracting to watch them. Anyway, off topic.

Quick question to those out there. Yes, I know the debate is about Mac or PC for CS4, so I need to ask:
How many of you are running Vista, or used to run Vista?
If you switched, or chose not to use Vista, why?
If you've had issues with Vista, what were they?

I ask because the argument for Macs is that they're OS is superior to Vista as far as stability, etc.

I'm not saying you're wrong, or lying, I'm just curious to hear what you're reasons are for thinking what you think.

I used Vista since it was in beta and then continued to use it in school. There is nothing wrong with Windows really. Having used Windows ever since getting my first computer (Win 95) I had come to accept that programs do crash, you will need to run anti-virus software and that a reformat or extensive cleanup procedures were required every half year or so. I didn't really have a problem with these, having put up with them for so long I just accepted them as facts of everyday computing. I still double boot with XP and run XP in VMware for gaming and a few other things.

I switched because I looked at Leopard and really liked the way it worked, everything from how the panes in finder work to the way programs install is just so much more efficient and fuss-free. The fact that it is more stable and runs faster as well was a huge plus. I was also quite pleased to find that Capture NX and PS CS3 run faster on the Mac, I wasn't expecting that.

I'm not saying that Windows PCs are bad or that one OS is ultimately better. I just think that OSX suited my needs better and that for running creative software, the Macs usually come out on top.